Cain & Abel

What made Cain capable of murdering his brother? Why was the flood generation so wicked? According to Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliezer, the fallen angel Samael embodies the serpent and seduces Eve, whereupon she conceives Cain. Engendered by this “bad seed,” all the descendants of Cain become corrupt, destined to be wiped out by mighty waters.

God rejects Cain’s sacrifice while accepting Abel’s, then in the next scene, Cain kills his brother. Does this mean that Cain killed Abel out of jealousy, or could other factors have been present? Ancient interpreters explore many possible motivations, from the simple to the bizarre.

A mother’s joy, loss, and recovery serves as an etiology of human grief.

Reading Cain’s murder of Abel and the account of Cain’s descendants as a metaphor for the trajectory of human development and the change in patterns of human behavior.

Eight possible meanings of Cain’s response גָּדוֹל עֲוֹנִי מִנְּשֹׂא (Genesis 4:13) and what this tells us about his character as presented in the Torah

Literature and art are replete with images of angels descending to earth and joining humanity. One source for this image is a terse account in Genesis describing fallen angels, which is expanded upon in Second Temple literature. This interpretive tradition is suppressed in the classic rabbinic literature only to resurface again in the late narrative midrash, Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer.

The bridge that enables the annual traversal from the ending of the Torah back to its beginning is the anticipation of new questions.